


They Say that Violet Stars will Set You Free

by appelwagon



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Drabble, M/M, origami porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 02:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7022452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/appelwagon/pseuds/appelwagon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Kirk, birthdays, and 1,000 paper cranes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Say that Violet Stars will Set You Free

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Janelle Monae's 'Violet Stars Happy Hunting!' Originally posted to my LJ in 2009, but I'm finally catching up with migrating my stuff to AO3.

It's not such a shock, maybe, to find out Bones knows how to sew. 

"Stitch," Bones snaps at him from over the thin slip of paper. "Stitch, not sew." 

Jim doesn't bitch right back at him, for once, just watches the silver needle flash in the light as it pierces the tip of a wing. 

"'Sides, could hardly call this stitching," Bones grumbles, dark hair falling in his face as he leans closer. "Just poking some holes in some paper birds." 

Jim snorts. "'Just some paper birds?' Don't give me that, Bones, you've been slaving over these for months." 

It's true. McCoy's room has been slowly filling with these slip thin cranes, paper so fine they sift sunlight into colored patches along the shelves, the PADD-littered desk, the window sill above the sink. 

The barely-there thread slips through a wing that wants to follow, bending in the careful pinch of Bones' fingers. Jim never really gets to see them up close at work like this. Usually he's too doped up on hypos or drunk on pain to tell if Bones is patching him up or playing a concertina on his kidneys. Now, though - watching those long pale fingers gently tug a piece of fishing line and tie invisibly small knots - Jim can sit back and call it art. 

“You ever going to tell me what this is all for?” Jim asks, eyebrows up. He fiddles with a purple crane, tiny beak twisting under his fingers.

“Put that down. And no.”

One week later, the flock of birds disappears, leaving Bones’ room as blank, clean-lined and orderly as if they’d never been there. Jim shrugs, and leaves it at that.

~~~~

The morning of his twenty third birthday, Jim wakes to the sound of rain on the window and sharp sunlight on his face. He flinches back with a groan, regrets it as his skull throbs and his stomach rolls. His mouth tastes like cotton and painful spots swim in his wet eyes. But he’s clean, his shoes lined up neatly by the door like they’re not sure how they got there, and there’s a hypo and a glass of water by his bed.

One swig and hypo release later, Jim’s crusted eyes have cleared enough to see through the bright-white square of his window. Dark, whirling spots resolve into a flock of tiny cranes, wings brushing the glass with a lazy _hsssssssh_. They billow in the wind, looking like jewels in the early morning light – fiery blue, red, yellow, green. 

Jim’s not sure how long he sits propped up on one elbow, heart in his throat. He realizes his hand is fisted in his sheets, and releases it along with his breath – slow.

There’s a post-it note on his water glass. Jim carefully peels it off, reads the note scrawled carefully on the top. Reads it again, and sets it down.

~~~~

McCoy nearly crushes the thing underfoot. It’s tiny on the coarse gray mess outside his door they call a carpet – a yellow post-it paper crane, one word printed on each bent wing - _you, too_.


End file.
